


can I handle the seasons of my life

by ashintuku



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Guardians of the Galaxy - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fix it, Fix-It, Gen, Non-Consensual Body Modification
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-30
Updated: 2017-08-30
Packaged: 2018-12-21 15:08:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11946831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashintuku/pseuds/ashintuku
Summary: “You don’tlooklike a Centaurian.”Yondu looked at her, quirking a smile at her bluntness, and turned away.“You don’t much look like a luphomoid, but there ya are.”





	can I handle the seasons of my life

They had spent weeks drifting through Ravager space, just to give him time to heal. 

He didn’t know how long it took him to heal, particularly. Didn’t much know how he survived, neither, but that wasn’t here or there at the end of it. His boy had gone on about somethin’ that sounded half-made up, and he’d just nodded and lightly smacked his face in what he’d meant to be a reassuring pat or somethin’, but too many minutes in the black without some kind of suit was a bit much for anybody. 

He’d only just started gettin’ enough energy to move around the familiar hallways of the Quadrant, Quill’s ragtag crew of misfits and do-gooders skirting around him when he saw ‘em. The only one who ever stopped to have a word was the rat, and they exchanged insults more often than not, with the occasional moment of concern from the rodent and an interruption from the twig. 

As for Kraglin, when he wasn’t hovering nearby, he was dealin’ with the Ravagers, telling ‘em about his progress and the like. He tried to keep quiet about it, but Yondu had always had an ear for listenin’, and he’d made listenin’ to everything around him a part of his survival plan since he was probably eight and tryin’ not to die. He knew it had been because the rat had called in the Ravagers, telling ‘em what he’d done and helped make right, that he’d been able to survive at all. 

The Quadrant had a medical room, sure – but Stakar’s damned ship had a medical _floor_ with doctors and shit, and they’d still had his records on hand. Transferring him from his little ship to the Ravager mothership had been as easy as whistling. It was only because he’d asked to be taken back to the Quadrant after initial recovery that he wasn’t still there. 

It still felt wrong bein’ around them, after all. 

Groaning, Yondu collapsed into one of the seats of the bridge, watchin’ the ships loitering outside and naming off who was who. 

There was Aleta’s ship, sleek and imposin’ just as she was; and there was Charlie’s, the closest thing to ‘friendly’ you’d ever get with a Ravager ship. Mainframe’s was a technological marvel, because of course it was, and Krugarr’s looked strange and foreign and shaped oddly. An eclectic mishmash of ships, with other, smaller ships floating around them; ships that followed each of the captains, tiny cities within themselves: a flotilla that he’d been stupid enough to get kicked out of. 

And they’d come back to help him. How fuckin’ _weird_. 

He barely twitched when the door opened behind him, only lolling his head back to see who it was. It was the luphomoid, Nebula, stalking in like she was waitin’ to be attacked. He eyed her carefully; she eyed him. 

Slowly, he turned his seat to face her. She stopped beside him, hands twitching, before throwing herself into the seat across from his. He licked his lips and waited. 

“They say you are a Centaurian.” 

“S’what I’ve been told, too.” 

“You don’t _look_ like a Centaurian.” 

Yondu looked at her, quirking a smile at her bluntness, and turned away. 

“You don’t much look like a luphomoid, but there ya are.” 

Nebula snorted, and Yondu tilted his head, still watching the ships outside. He heard her shift in her seat. 

“If I were to walk amongst my people, they would not embrace me as one of their own. I am too changed. I doubt they would even acknowledge that I am a living creature. Just a machine that has the same face as them.” 

“S’that so?” 

“Thanos made me into this. Thanos _improved_ me and took away whatever identity I could cling to while he did it.” She said _improved_ like it was a cuss word, and Yondu grinned one of his sardonic little grins. 

“Centaurians have this thing on their heads, call ‘em _tahleis_. S’a crest – some people call it a fin, but it ain’t, it’s a crest. Part of what makes a Centaurian a Centaurian, y’know?” Nebula didn’t make a sound, but he knew she was listening. “S’organic, mind, somethin’ they grow themselves. I ain’t got that.” He reached up, cringing as his ribs protested the movement, but he pushed through; a stubborn jackass to the end. “Just got this thing, metal and circuits; this one’s m’own design, ‘cause I was feelin’ like a sentimental idiot one night and thought I’d make m’self look like a proper Centaurian. The one you shot through, that was Kree design.” 

She shifted, and he glanced out of the corner of his eye to see her tilting her head. 

“...See, they made me into what I was. An’ just ‘cause I changed the look of it, don’t think no tribe would accept me as one of their own. T’them, I’m just some sick abomination. A reminder of their goddamn fuck-ups.” He snorted, dropping his hand back to his lap, leaning his head back and breathing out slowly. “...would serve ‘em right, really, wouldn’t it.” 

Nebula said nothing, but he didn’t rightly expect her to. They just sat together in silence, watchin’ the Ravager ships outside float by; the sounds of walkin’ feet out in the hall behind them, the faint hint of music as his boy figured out how to connect the Zune into the speaker system. Yondu folded his hands over his stomach. 

He spoke up again, smilin’ to himself. 

“Guess we just fit in with this ship of screw-ups, don’t we? Nothin’ else out there like us. Might as well stick with the misfits.” 

Nebula scoffed, but didn’t deny it, and Yondu laughed hoarsely. 

He watched the ships drift by, his family that had taken him back and accepted the family he’d made for himself without them, and thought that maybe it would be alright, after all. 

Or maybe that was just the song playin’ in the hallways; he’d never tell.

**Author's Note:**

> I create a fix-it just so I can have these two have a conversation about the fact that outside forces changed and modified them to the point that they are outsiders to their own people (the Kree with Yondu; Thanos with Nebula) and I thought that they'd kind of bond over that; like how Yondu and Rocket bond over the fact that they're both broken, empty people who aren't used to people caring about them and they push them away as a result, Nebula and Yondu would be particularly isolated because they aren't exactly what they started out as. 
> 
> I think because Gamora wasn't changed as drastically as Nebula - that she still looks her people and most of her modifications are turned inward - that she wouldn't connect to that part of their abuse as deeply as she would the emotional aspects of the abuse the two of them took, and her part in Nebula's overall abuse. 
> 
> Also I'unno I like the thought of Yondu kind of adopting the outcasts who remind him of himself and making sure they know they're not three-thousand percent alone in the universe.


End file.
